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poetry

Describe your creative space. Do you work at home, in public spaces, etc.?

I always carry a notebook with me, but I never write more than fragmented thoughts when I’m out and about. Most of my creating happens at home. I have notebooks all over those house, but most of my writing usually happens in the living room at my desk in the guest room.

What kind of materials do you use? Do you write by hand or type? What is your favorite writing utensil?

All of the fragments and first drafts always happen in either a notebook or on some random scrap of paper, and I always use a pen (usually ballpoint, but sometimes fountain). All subsequent drafts happen on my computer.

What is your routine for writing?

My most productive time of writing is in the early morning when everything is quiet and feels fresh. My little dog usually lies next to my chair or at my feet when I write.

How long have you been writing? When did you start writing?

The earliest poem I saved was written in the third grade; it was about kit foxes. It wasn’t until undergrad, though, that I really began writing and started thinking of myself as a poet. Still, I didn’t submit anything and kept my poems basically to myself until I started my MFA over a decade later. It’s a little scary putting your heart out there for others, but as I’ve grown older, I’ve come to realize the sharing is what makes poetry powerful because it’s those deep feelings it contains that connect us all through the human experience.

Who is your intended, or ideal, audience? Who do you write for?

My poetry often pulls from my life as a mother and Marine Corps spouse, so I suppose my writing speaks loudest to those audiences, but the themes also reach out to others who feel isolation, fear, worry, and all those other emotions we often feel we grapple with alone.

What inspires you to write? If you are blocked, what do you do?

I’ve come to realize if I force myself to write what I want to write, I run into writers block more often. When I left what I need to write come out on the page, the poems come easily and plentifully. My inspiration comes from my day to day life. Prompts can help when the writing hits a wall, but the prompt only helps I think of it as a fluid thing that doesn’t bind my writing.

What other things do you do besides writing? Do you dance or play golf, etc.?

I love painting and dancing. My daughter is getting old enough to do more and more art projects and games, so those are becoming more frequent family activities in our home. I also do scent detection training and therapy dog volunteering with my dog.

What is your favorite part of the creative process?

It’s a toss up between the exhilaration of seeing something in the process of creation and seeing something get shared with others.

What is your advice to aspiring writers?

You are a unique individual who has a unique voice and experiences. If you write in your authentic style and voice about what matters most to you, all the deeper emotions within your writing will speak more clearly and connect with more people.

Ellie White holds an MFA from Old Dominion University. She writes poetry and nonfiction, and is the creator of the online comic strip “Uterus & Ellie.” Her work has appeared in Antiphon Poetry Magazine, Harpur Palate, Tincture and several other journals. Ellie’s chapbook, Requiem for a Doll, was released by ELJ Publications in June 2015. She is a nonfiction editor at Four Ties Literary Review, and the Social Media Editor for Muzzle Magazine. She currently lives near some big rocks and trees outside Charlottesville, Virginia.

Larry D. Thacker’s poetry can be found or is forthcoming in more than ninety publications including The Still Journal, Poetry South, Tower Poetry Society, Mad River Review, Spillway, The Southern Poetry Anthology, Mojave River Review, Mannequin Haus, Ghost City Press, Jazz Cigarette, and Appalachian Heritage. His books include Mountain Mysteries: The Mystic Traditions of Appalachia and the poetry books, Voice Hunting and Memory Train, as well as the forthcoming, Drifting in Awe. He’s presently working on his MFA in both poetry and fiction. Visit his website at: www.larrydthacker.com.

Ruth Sabath Rosenthal is a New York poet, well-published in literary journals and poetry anthologies throughout the U.S. and also in Canada, France, India, Israel, Italy, Romania, and the U.K. In 2006, Ruth’s poem “on yet another birthday” was nominated for a Pushcart prize. Ruth has authored five books of poetry: Facing Home (a chapbook), Facing Home and Beyond, little, but by no means small, Food: Nature vs Nurture, and Gone, but Not Easily Forgotten. These books can be purchased on Amazon.com. For more about Ruth, please feel free to visit her websites www.newyorkcitypoet.com, http://bigapplepoet.com, and her blog site http://poetrybyruthsabathrosenthal.com

John Timothy Robinson is a traditional citizen and graduate of the Marshall University Creative Writing program in Huntington, West Virginia with a Regent’s Degree. He has an interest in Critical Theory of poetry and American Formalism. John is also a twelve-year educator for Mason County Schools in Mason County, WV. He strives for a poetics similar to Donald Hall, Maxine Kumin, James Wright, Louis Simpson, Gallway Kinnell and Robert Bly, though enjoys learning from intrinsic poets and their theories in the critical writings of Denise Levertov, Robert Creeley, Louis Zukofsky, William Carlos Williams, and Richard Kostelanetz. John is currently working on a creative dissertation in contemporary poetry, though outside the university environment. His work has appeared in and forthcoming in Blue Collar Review, Kestrel, California Quarterly, Ship of Fools, Floyd County Moonshine, Wild Violet Magazine, POEM, Ibbetson Street Press, The Iconoclast, Pulsar Poetry Magazine, The Society of Classical Poets.org, The South Carolina Review, A Time of Singing, ThePoetryShed.com,The Avocet: A Journal of Nature Poetry, Pennsylvania English, Pinyon Poetry Review, Ancient Paths,TheTrumpeter Journal of Ecosophy, Westward Quarterly, Green Hills Literary Lantern, naturewriting.com,Straylight Literary Magazine, Wild Goose Poetry Review, South Poetry Magazine, Glassworks Magazine, The Lyric, Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, Red River Review, Nebo, and The Olivetree Review.

Meg Reynolds is a poet, artist, and teacher living in Burlington, VT. She holds her BA in English and Arts and Visual Culture from Bates College and her MFA in poetry from Stonecoast at the University of Southern Maine. Her work has been published in Pine Street Poets and Pomeroy Street Poets Anthologies through Honeybee Press as well as Gravel Journal, Prelude Journal, Wildage Press, Prime Number Magazine, and the anthology Monster Verse: Poems Human and Inhuman. She is the co-director of writinginsideVT, an organization that offers supportive writing instruction at the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility in Burlington, VT.